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		<header>
			<h1>Genesis</h1>
			<p>An atheist reads the bible</p>
		</header>
<p>
	Let&apos;s see what interesting things we can find while reading through the bible&apos;s Book of Genesis, shall we?
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 1:6 - 1:8</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			God said,
			&quot;Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.&quot;
		</p>
		<p>
			God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.
		</p>
		<p>
			God called the expanse &quot;sky&quot;.
			There was evening and there was morning, a second day.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Right here, near the beginning of the bible, we have passages that contradict science, and are therefore incorrect.
	The first of these three passages says that there&apos;s an expanse that divides water from water.
	In other words, there&apos;s water on both sides of this expanse.
	The second explains that one body of water exists above the expanse and one below.
	And the third tells us that the expanse in question is the sky itself.
	This tells us that there&apos;s a body of water below the sky, which I assumed to be the ocean (and this was later confirmed in Genesis 1:10), but also that there&apos;s a body of water <strong>*above*</strong> the sky.
	What body of water exists above the sky?
	Above the sky, the atmosphere, we have sort of a void.
	It&apos;s not completely empty by any means, but outer space isn&apos;t exactly full of water, either.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			God said, &quot;Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs to mark seasons, days, and years; 
		</p>
		<p>
			and let them be for lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth;&quot; and it was so.
		</p>
		<p>
			God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night.
			He also made the stars.
		</p>
		<p>
			God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light to the earth,
		</p>
		<p>
			and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness.
			God saw that it was good.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Taken alone, these passages don&apos;t seem so bad.
	However, try combining them with the passages above, which tell us what the sky is.
	The sky is the expanse between the waters.
	There are no upper waters, so such an expanse between them can&apos;t exist, but if we claim outer space to be the upper waters, that defines the sky as the atmosphere.
	These passages tell us that the sun, moon, and stars are within the sky, making them within our atmosphere.
	Science disputes that heavily.
	All of these celestial bodies are far removed from our tiny atmosphere, and even a single one of them wouldn&apos;t fit within it.
	These things are huge.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 1:29</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			God said, &quot;Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	In this passage, Yahweh is speaking to the freshly-created pair of humans.
	These are the uncorrupted, perfect humans.
	According to Christianity, our uncorrupted form is mean to be herbivoracious.
	Read literally, we&apos;re supposed to eat herbs and fruit trees, though my take is that we&apos;re supposed to eat herbs and fruit <strong>*from*</strong> fruit trees.
	That just makes more sense.
	But yeah.
	According to this, meat consumption is a corruption of the initial design, so it&apos;d probably be wise to avoid it.
	Go eat plants instead, you herbivore, you.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 1:11 - 1:13</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			God said, &quot;Let the earth yield grass, herbs yielding seeds, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with their seeds in it, on the earth;&quot; and it was so.
		</p>
		<p>
			The earth yielded grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with their seeds in it, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.
		</p>
		<p>
			There was evening and there was morning, a third day.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Here, we&apos;re told that Yahweh made plants on on the third day.
	And not only did he make plants, but those plants included grass and herbs.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 2:2, 2:5</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			On the seventh day God finished his work which he had done; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.
		</p>
		<p>
			No plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for Yahweh God had not caused it to rain on the earth.
			There was not a man to till the ground,
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	However, just as early as the beginning of the next chapter, we&apos;re told that Yahweh hadn&apos;t made field plants yet.
	Field herbs are mentioned separately.
	Maybe Yahweh only made the non-field herbs, saving field herbs for later?
	Whatever the case is though, grass is most certainly a field plant.
	If you don&apos;t have any field plants, you don&apos;t have grass.
	Maybe it means <strong>*cultivated*</strong> field plants?
	It seems like a stretch, but maybe that&apos;s what it&apos;s referring to.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 2:10, 2:</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			A river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it was parted, and became the source of four rivers.
		</p>
		<p>
			The name of the third river is Hiddekel.
			This is the one which flows in front of Assyria.
			The fourth river is the Euphrates. 
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	The Euphrates?
	As in, the Fertile Crescent&apos;s Euphrates?
	Perhaps it&apos;s another river by the same name, but if it&apos;s not, that means we can follow the Euphrates to its source to find Eden.
	Maps indicate otherwise though.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 2:16 - 2:17</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, &quot;You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;
		</p>
		<p>
			but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Don&apos;t eat from that tree, or in the day you eat of it, you&apos;ll die.
	Am I getting that right?
	So if Yahweh was honest, Adam wouldn&apos;t be able to start a family after eating from the tree and being expelled form the garden.
	Yahweh was lying, but lying is a sin, Yahweh doesn&apos;t sin, and Yahweh specifically doesn&apos;t lie.
	This isn&apos;t adding up.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 3:2 - 3:5</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			The woman said to the serpent, &quot;We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden,
		</p>
		<p>
			but not the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, &apos;You shall not eat of it. You shall not touch it, lest you die.&apos; &quot;
		</p>
		<p>
			The serpent said to the woman, &quot;You won&apos;t really die,
		</p>
		<p>
			for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	First, the woman paraphrases.
	Either that, or Yahweh gave her slightly-different information than she did the man, but gave it to her outside of the depicted scenes.
	We never actually see when the woman is told not to eat from the tree, only the man, and only before the woman was created.
	Her paraphrasing is actually closer to the truth than what was told Adam though.
	She&apos;s told she&apos;ll die if she touches the tree.
	No time frame for that death is given.
	Adam was told though that he&apos;d die the day he ate from the tree, which didn&apos;t happen and establishes Yahweh as a liar.
	Next, the serpent tells the woman that she&apos;ll have her eyes opened and she gains a similar understanding as Yahweh, just as the serpent informed her.
	The serpent was mostly honest, while Yahweh was a liar.
	While it&apos;s not said in this chapter in the book too, my understanding is that lack of access to the tree of life is why these people would die.
	They were driven from the garden and no longer had access to the tree of life.
	If they&apos;d eaten from the tree of life <strong>*before*</strong> the tree of knowledge, they therefore would have lived.
	That is, unless continual access to the tree of life&apos;s fruit is required.
	In other words, eating from the tree of knowledge doesn&apos;t actually kill you.
	It&apos;s Yahweh driving you away from the tree of life that kills you.
	This means that the serpent may have been completely honest with them.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Yahweh God said to the woman, &quot;What have you done?&quot;
			The woman said, &quot;The serpent deceived me, and I ate.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	<strong>*Did*</strong> the serpent deceive her?
	Or did the serpent just give her the honest facts?
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 3:14</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Yahweh God said to the serpent,
			&quot;Because you have done this, you are cursed above all livestock, and above every animal of the field.
			You shall go on your belly and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Here, we see the origin of why snakes have no legs, and must instead slither on their bellies, unlike other animals.
	Do you know what that means?
	It means this was a literal snake.
	It wasn&apos;t Satan in disguise like modern Christians claim.
	The intent of the snake in this store was to show why literal snakes have no legs.
	The snake here is nothing more.
	Also, the ancient people that wrote this fable were convinced that snakes eat dust.
	They weren&apos;t aware that they&apos;re actually predators, and eat insects, rodents, birds, and things of that nature.
</p>
<p>
	Oh, and by the way, snakes can talk.
	That&apos;s a thing they can do, apparently.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 3:15</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			&quot;I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring.
			He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	This is why people hate and attack snakes.
	It&apos;s not an instinctual, self-defence mechanism.
	It&apos;s a curse.
	Humans that descend from Eve, which is to say everyone that isn&apos;t Adam, are cursed to be hostile towards snakes.
	Likewise, snakes aren&apos;t attacking out of fear or in self-defence.
	Again, it&apos;s this same curse.
	I&apos;d also like to point out here that the <strong>*descendants*</strong> of the snake and the woman, who Yahweh was claiming wronged him, are cursed.
	You&apos;re punished for the sins of your parents.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 3:16</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			To the woman he said,
			&quot;I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth.
			You will bear children in pain.
			Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Here, Yahweh didn&apos;t curse her children, but specifically her.
	Yet somehow the childbirth pain part carries over to her female children?
	It could have been poor wording on Yahweh&apos;s part, and he intended it the same way as the snake/human hostility curse.
	As for the man ruling over the woman, this part sounds like it was a way for religion to back sexism in the past age of sexism in which it was written in.
	There&apos;s no excuse for that sexism in the modern world, and should be fixed even in the church.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 3:17 - 3:19</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			To Adam he said,
			&quot;Because you have listened to your wife&apos;s voice, and have eaten from the tree, about which I commanded you, saying, &apos;You shall not eat of it,&apos; the ground is cursed for your sake.
			You will eat from it with much labor all the days of your life. 
		</p>
		<p>
			It will yield thorns and thistles to you; and you will eat the herb of the field. 
		</p>
		<p>
			You will eat bread by the sweat of your face until you return to the ground, for you were taken out of it.
			For you are dust, and you shall return to dust.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	You listened to your wife.
	Now I&apos;m going to make life hard for you.
	Oh.
	Well.
	Better not do that again!
	Again, sounds like grounds for placing the men in charge and ignoring what the women have to say.
	It sounds like an attempt to justify sexism through religion.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 3:22 - 3:24</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Yahweh God said, &quot;Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever-&quot;
		</p>
		<p>
			Therefore Yahweh God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.
		</p>
		<p>
			So he drove out the man; and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	What did I say when discussion what the serpent had said?
	Just this!
	This right here!
	The tree of knowledge&apos;s fruit doesn&apos;t kill you.
	It&apos;s lack of access to the tree of life&apos;s fruit that kills you.
</p>
<p>
	Additionally, it looks like Yahweh was specifically upset that humans would know good and evil.
	Humans aren&apos;t allowed such knowledge, so they have to die.
	So.
	Um.
	Why put the tree there?
</p>
<p>
	I&apos;d also like to point out that the Mormons think Adam and Eve couldn&apos;t follow both the commandment to avoid the fruit of this one tree and the commandment to be fruitful and multiply.
	However, this second commandment wasn&apos;t given, at least at the time they ate the fruit.
	It might be given later on.
	In any case, being fruitful and multiplying was not a requirement as of this time.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 4:1 - 4:2, 4:10 - 4:12, 4:16 - 4:17</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			The man knew Eve his wife. She conceived, and gave birth to Cain, and said,
			&quot;I have gotten a man with Yahweh&apos;s help.&quot;
		</p>
		<p>
			Again she gave birth, to Cain&apos;s brother Abel.
			Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
		</p>
		<p>
			...
		</p>
		<p>
			Yahweh said,
			&quot;What have you done?
			The voice of your brother&apos;s blood cries to me from the ground.
		</p>
		<p>
			Now you are cursed because of the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother&apos;s blood from your hand.
		</p>
		<p>
			From now on, when you till the ground, it won&apos;t yield its strength to you.
			You will be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth.&quot;
		</p>
		<p>
			...
		</p>
		<p>
			Cain left Yahweh&apos;s presence, and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
		</p>
		<p>
			Cain knew his wife.
			She conceived, and gave birth to Enoch.
			He built a city, and named the city after the name of his son, Enoch.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Um.
	What?
	After killing his brother Abel, Cain is banished from Yahweh&apos;s presence.
	He then finds a wife.
	The only people at this point are Adam, Eve, and Abel.
	(There was Cain, but Abel killed him.)
	Is there some other group of people now that didn&apos;t come from Adam and Eve?
	Maybe Adam and Eve were a side creation, and humanity actually existed before them?
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 4:25</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Adam knew his wife again.
			She gave birth to a son, and named him Seth, saying, &quot;for God has given me another child instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Adam and Eve had a third child.
	This is <strong>*after*</strong> Abel had been murdered and <strong>*after*</strong> Cain has been banished.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 5:4</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			The days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. 
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	<strong>*After*</strong> Seth was born, Adam and Eve created more children, which are not named within the pages of the Bible.
	But there&apos;s enough information here to draw up a timeline on some events.
	Cain was banished and had a child with his wife, <strong>*then*</strong> Cain&apos;s sisters came into being.
	That means Cain&apos;s wife is not his sister, and it&apos;s obvious she&apos;s not Eve.
	Something&apos;s not adding up here.
	As I mentioned before, this makes sense if Adam and Eve weren&apos;t the only humans Yahweh directly created himself, but doesn&apos;t make sense otherwise.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 6:3</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Yahweh said,
			&quot;My Spirit will not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; so his days will be one hundred twenty years.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	I&apos;m not sure exactly what Yahweh&apos;s logic here is.
	Like, I&apos;m reading these words, and I don&apos;t know what they mean.
	Because humans are made of flesh, he won&apos;t work with us forever?
	But <strong>*also*</strong> flesh?
	Is he saying that he&apos;s flesh as well, and because we&apos;re like him in that regard, he won&apos;t work with us as long as he had worked with past generations, who were flesh as well?
	If that&apos;s the case, it makes little to no sense.
</p>
<p>
	In any case, he just shortened the human life span down to one hundred twenty years.
	For reference, compare that to the several-hundred-year lifespans mentioned in the chapter just prior.
	But did he shorten it again?
	Because people in biblical times didn&apos;t have such long lifespans as that.
	We still don&apos;t to this day, at least in the typical case, and our lifespans have increased since biblical times due to advancements in science.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 6:5 - 6:7</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of man&apos;s heart was continually only evil.
		</p>
		<p>
			Yahweh was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.
		</p>
		<p>
			Yahweh said,
			&quot;I will destroy man whom I have created from the surface of the ground-man, along with animals, creeping things, and birds of the sky-for I am sorry that I have made them.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Humans are evil.
	Therefore, Yahweh is sorry that he made the non-human animals (in addition to being sorry he created humans), who did nothing wrong.
	Um.
	What?
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 6:14 - 6:20</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			&quot;Make a ship of gopher wood. You shall make rooms in the ship, and shall seal it inside and outside with pitch.
		</p>
		<p>
			This is how you shall make it. The length of the ship shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.
		</p>
		<p>
			You shall make a roof in the ship, and you shall finish it to a cubit upward. You shall set the door of the ship in its side. You shall make it with lower, second, and third levels.
		</p>
		<p>
			I, even I, will bring the flood of waters on this earth, to destroy all flesh having the breath of life from under the sky. Everything that is in the earth will die.
		</p>
		<p>
			But I will establish my covenant with you. You shall come into the ship, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons&apos; wives with you.
		</p>
		<p>
			Of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ship, to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female.
		</p>
		<p>
			Of the birds after their kind, of the livestock after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every sort will come to you, to keep them alive.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	According to the annotations in my bible, a cubit is about forty-six centimetres.
	So the boat will be one hundred thirty metres long and twenty-three metres wide.
	We can see that the boat will also be a little under fourteen metres tall, but we can set that aside in favour of a more-important figure.
	Specifically, the number of floors seems more relevant to me, and there will be three floors.
	If you want to carry two of every species, or even just <strong>*one*</strong> of every species for that matter, you&apos;re going to need a lot more space than that.
	You just can&apos;t fit them all on the boat.
</p>
<p>
	Also, this is to preserve all these species, right?
	Just think of the amount of inbreeding after the flood!
	The creatures that remain will be severely deformed after a few generations.
</p>
<p>
	Additionally, I thought Yahweh was sorry he created the non-human animals.
	Why is he saving them then?
	The reason he&apos;s sorry he created humans is because they&apos;re all evil at this point.
	Most are, anyway.
	He found one family of people he thought weren&apos;t evil.
	So, it makes sense that he&apos;d spare those people.
	However, that has nothing to do with the other animals.
	If they&apos;re not a problem, why is he sorry he made them?
	And if he&apos;s sorry he made them, why is he preserving them?
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 6:21</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			&quot;Take with you some of all food that is eaten, and gather it to yourself; and it will be for food for you, and for them.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Okay.
	They&apos;re going on a journey, and they need rations.
	But how long will they be travelling for?
	How much should they bring?
	Yahweh doesn&apos;t provide enough detail here for Noah to bring the right amount of supplies.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 7:2 - 7:3</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			&quot;You shall take seven pairs of every clean animal with you, the male and his female. Of the animals that are not clean, take two, the male and his female.
		</p>
		<p>
			Also of the birds of the sky, seven and seven, male and female, to keep seed alive on the surface of all the earth.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	In the last chapter, I pointed out that there wasn&apos;t enough space for two of each animal species on the boat, given its dimensions.
	But now, Yahweh is upping the animal count.
	For some animals, there&apos;s still only two of a kind, but for other, Noah&apos;s got to bring fourteen.
	Again, there&apos;s not enough space for that.
</p>
<p>
	Having extras like this would help a bit with the inbreeding problem, but I feel like you&apos;d still need a bigger starting population to get enough genetic diversity to fully alleviate the problem.
	Additionally, as there&apos;s still only two of some species, the inbreeding problem is still in full force for those species.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 7:4</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			In seven days, I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Okay, three things here.
	First, I mentioned before that in the last chapter, Yahweh didn&apos;t tell Noah how much food to bring nor how long the trip would be, which could sort of act as a substitute because Noah could estimate or calculate how much food would be needed from that.
	So, now that problem is solved.
</p>
<p>
	But Noah&apos;s got to stockpile over a month&apos;s worth of food and build an enormous boat all within the span of a week.
	There&apos;s no way that he and his family are up to that sort of task.
	It takes longer than that for skilled crews of workers to build smaller boats using modern technology.
	Ignoring the food-gathering, there&apos;s not enough time to build the boat!
</p>
<p>
	Additionally, if there wasn&apos;t enough room on the boat for the animals, there certainly wouldn&apos;t be enough room for the animals <strong>*and*</strong> the massive quantities of food they&apos;d need to survive the long journey.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 7:11</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			In the six hundredth year of Noah&apos;s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the sky&apos;s windows opened.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Here, we get a glimpse of how the ancient Christians - or rather, the Jewish, who wrote the beginning of the bible - thought that the world was set up.
	There are fountains in the ocean, from which water can pour in and cause sea levels to rise.
	Likewise, rain comes from windows in the sky.
	Remember when I talked about there being water above the sky as mentioned in Genesis 1:6 through 1:8?
	Yeah.
	So rain actually comes from above the sky in their view, through these sky windows.
	That means that rain either comes from beyond our atmosphere or the stars are within our atmosphere.
	Either way, the stars are <strong>*within*</strong> the sky, while the rain comes from the border between the sky and the waters above.
	Stars are closer to us than the source of rain, according to this book.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 7:19 - 7:20</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			The waters rose very high on the earth.
			All the high mountains that were under the whole sky were covered.
		</p>
		<p>
			The waters rose fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	As I mentioned before, my bible&apos;s annotations indicate that a cubit is about forty-six centimetres.
	So for reference, that makes the flood waters about 6.9 metres higher than the tallest mountain.
</p>
<p>
	On the highest mountains, you have to worry about the air being too thin.
	Almost seven metres above that?
	Yeah.
	My first thought was that you&apos;re going to have trouble breathing.
	But air has volume.
	It takes up space.
	The water would displace it.
	Would the air then be breathable at that altitude simply because the thicker air below was pushed up?
</p>
<p>
	What about temperature.
	It&apos;s cold up in the mountains, and colder above them.
	Would the water and the displaced air displace the temperature regions as well?
	I&apos;m honestly not sure.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 7:24</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			The waters flooded the earth one hundred fifty days.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Oh.
	Right.
	I mentioned that Noah now had a time frame as far as how long he&apos;d need to keep his family and the other animals alive on the food he stockpiled.
	But he actually didn&apos;t.
	He was told how long it would rain, not how long the flood would last.
	So he needed enough food for the one hundred fifty days, which I don&apos;t think included the forty days the waters took to rise.
	So he needed enough food for a total of one hundred ninety days.
	Not only is there no way that&apos;d fit on the boat with the animals, he also wasn&apos;t even told he&apos;d need that much.
	He and the rest of the animals would have starved for sure.
	I mean, assuming he and the rest of the animals were magically on the boat in the first place, even though they couldn&apos;t all fit.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 8:2</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			The deep&apos;s fountains and the sky&apos;s windows were also stopped, and the rain from the sky was restrained.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Again, this tells us that water can be pumped into our world via fountains underwater and via windows in the sky.
	As mentioned before, there&apos;s water above the sky, and rain is what you get when the water comes down through windows between the sky and the waters above.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 8:3</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			The waters continually receded from the earth.
			After the end of one hundred fifty days the waters receded.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Is this saying that it took a span of one hundred fifty days for the water to recede, in which case even <strong>*more*</strong> rations would have been needed?
	That would mean that almost a year worth of food would be needed for every animal on the ship, including the humans.
	Or is this saying that after the one hundred fifty days of having the world flooded, the time span mentioned before, the waters receded?
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 8:10 - 8:11</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			He waited yet another seven days; and again he sent the dove out of the ship.
		</p>
		<p>
			The dove came back to him at evening and, behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf.
			So Noah knew that the waters were abated from the earth.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Wait a minute.
	Noah knew the waters had receded enough to allow the dove to locate an olive tree and pluck a leaf from it.
	Yahweh just flooded the planet and killed every living thing, save for those on the boat.
	There are no plants, or at least no land plants.
	They drowned
	All the trees would be dead at this point.
	At smallest estimate, it&apos;s been one hundred fifty days; almost three fifths of a year.
	That&apos;s if the one hundred fifty days mentioned in the receding are the same days as the one hundred fifty mentioned as the flood duration, and if the forty days of rain were also included in the one hundred fifty days of flooding.
	If not, the flood was even longer.
	But even at one hundred fifty days, the leaves of all the dead trees would have long since rotted.
	You&apos;re not finding fresh olive leaves at this point.
</p>
<p>
	Wow.
	I was so caught up in how you can&apos;t keep that many animals alive on such a small boat that I forgot that plants and fungi would need to be saved as well.
	But they didn&apos;t get saved, so all of those would have died out.
	This is a case where the ancient people who made up this story weren&apos;t aware of the fact that plants and fungi need to breathe, just like animals do.
	Their ignorance didn&apos;t make it any less true in their time though.
	Had the flood happened, there would be no olive trees to find.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 8:20</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and took of every clean animal, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	First of all, I&apos;d like to point out that you&apos;re supposed to burn offerings to Yahweh, the lord, your god.
	If you&apos;re not doing that, Yahweh probably isn&apos;t happy with you.
	You think that&apos;s a practice done only by ancient, archaic religions?
	Well, you&apos;re right, but Christianity <strong>*is*</strong> an ancient, archaic religion.
	Don&apos;t forget that.
</p>
<p>
	But also, Noah just wasted some of the remaining biodiversity he&apos;d just saved.
	That&apos;s not exactly a good idea.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 9:1</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them,
			&quot;Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	No one is told to be fruitful or multiply before this point.
	At least no one human is.
	Yahweh told the non-human animals to be fruitful and multiply early on, and he might have told the plants that too.
	I don&apos;t quite remember.
	In any case, the Mormons believe that Adam and Eve were given this commandment, but the scriptures don&apos;t back up this belief.
</p>
<p>
	Also, why did Yahweh tell Noah and his sons to be fruitful and multiply, but didn&apos;t tell that to Noah&apos;s wife or Noah&apos;s sons&apos; wives?
	Aren&apos;t they going to need the help of the women if they&apos;re going to pull this one off?
	Why is Yahweh speaking only to the men, and not everybody?
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 9:3</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			&quot;Every moving thing that lives will be food for you.
			As I gave you the green herb, I have given everything to you.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Here, humans are given permission to eat animals.
	If it moves and lives, it&apos;s food.
</p>
<p>
	Come to think of it, this says it&apos;s all food.
	Every single moving thing that lives.
	Ignoring the obvious fact that cannibalism is allowed by this overly-broad statement, poisonous animals are included as well.
	Poisonous animals are food.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 9:4</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			&quot;But flesh with its life, that is, its blood, you shall not eat.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	But don&apos;t eat blood.
	What are you, some sort of vampire?
	I guess eating blood sausage is a sin.
	Not that I really care, seeing as I choose to be an herbivore, anyway.
	The message here though is that you&apos;ve got to kill it and drain it&apos;s blood out before you&apos;re allowed to eat any animal.
	Blood is not on the menu.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 9:6</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			&quot;Whoever sheds man&apos;s blood, his blood will be shed by man, for God made man in his own image.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	I&apos;m not sure of Yahweh&apos;s logic as to <strong>*why*</strong> we shouldn&apos;t kill our fellow humans, but it looks like killing each other is off the table after all.
	I guess cannibalism isn&apos;t actually allowed.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 9:7</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			&quot;Be fruitful and multiply.
			Increase abundantly in the earth, and multiply in it.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Again, Yahweh wants the remaining humans to repopulate.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 9:12 - 9:13</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			God said,
			&quot;This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
		</p>
		<p>
			I set my rainbow in the cloud, and it will be a sign of a covenant between me and the earth.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Yahweh just rewrote the laws of physics so that different frequencies of light will now refract differently through a prism, causing raindrops to split light into rainbows when it rains.
	Neat!
	Before this point, rainbows didn&apos;t exist because we were still operating with a different set of physics laws that didn&apos;t allow for rainbows.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 9:14</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			&quot;When I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow will be seen in the cloud,&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	What did I just say about rainbows existing because of light refracting through raindrops?
	Ignore that.
	My bad.
	Rainbows actually come from clouds, and have nothing to do with raindrops.
	Also, every time the sky is covered in clouds, you&apos;ll see a rainbow.
	Every single time.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 9:16</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			&quot;The rainbow will be in the cloud.
			I will look at it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Here, Yahweh is still speaking, though for some reason, he switches into third person.
	Maybe it&apos;s a translation error, and Noah is supposed to be speaking here.
	If not, Yahweh needs the rainbow as a reminder to himself that he promised not to flood the world again.
	He can&apos;t just remember that on his own.
	Again, that could just be a translation error.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 9:18 - 9:19</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			The sons of Noah who went out from the ship were Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
			Ham is the father of Canaan.
		</p>
		<p>
			These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Noah and his sons were all told to be fruitful and multiply, but I guess Noah decided not to because he&apos;d already multiplied before being told to?
	Here, it says everyone descends from the three sons that existed prior to the flood.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 9:20 - 9:27</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Noah began to be a farmer, and planted a vineyard.
		</p>
		<p>
			He drank of the wine and got drunk.
			He was uncovered within his tent.
		</p>
		<p>
			Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside.
		</p>
		<p>
			Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it on both their shoulders, went in backwards, and covered the nakedness of their father.
			Their faces were backwards, and they didn&apos;t see their father&apos;s nakedness.
		</p>
		<p>
			Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his youngest son had done to him.
		</p>
		<p>
			He said,
			&quot;Canaan is cursed.
			He will be a servant of servants to his brothers.&quot;
		</p>
		<p>
			He said,
			&quot;Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Shem.
			Let Canaan be his servant.
		</p>
		<p>
			May God enlarge Japheth.
			Let him dwell in the tents of Shem.
			Let Canaan be his servant.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	First of all, what did the youngest son do that was so bad?
	I&apos;m not sure which of the three is the youngest, but Ham accidentally saw his father naked after the father had gotten drunk and stripped off his clothing.
	It sounds like their father passed out drunk, too.
	Shem and Japheth came in, didn&apos;t look, and covered up their father so no one would see him nude.
	What is Noah so angry about?
</p>
<p>
	So Canaan, who wasn&apos;t even involved in this, gets cursed to be the servant of his brothers.
	No brothers are mentioned, but that doesn&apos;t mean he doesn&apos;t have any.
	But then Canaan is also cursed to be the servant of his uncles, Shem and Japheth?
	I&apos;m very confused as to what&apos;s going on here.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 10:2 - 10:5</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			The sons of Japheth were: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras.
		</p>
		<p>
			The sons of Gomer were: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.
		</p>
		<p>
			The sons of Javan were: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.
		</p>
		<p>
			Of these were the islands of the nations divided in their lands, everyone after his language, after their families, in their nations.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	I don&apos;t quite understand the wording here.
	Is it saying that each island went to one of these people and their families, and that each family had its own language?
	Why were they all speaking different languages?
	A great flood just wiped everyone out, save for four people that were related by blood and four more that were related to the first four by marriage.
	Japheth was one of these eight people, and the rest of the people listed are listed as some of Japheth&apos;s descendants.
	Where are these other languages coming from?
	And I&apos;ll remind you that the Tower of Babel hadn&apos;t happened yet.
	The languages had not yet been confounded by Yahweh.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 11:1</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			The whole earth was of one language and of one speech.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Just a bit ago, the claim was made that each island nation had its own language, which made no sense, as they all descended from Noah and thus should have had the same language.
	This passage contradicts the passage claiming multiple languages, but makes more sense to the story.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 11:2 - 11:8</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			As they traveled east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they lived there.
		</p>
		<p>
			They said to one another,
			&quot;Come, let&apos;s make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.&quot;
			They had brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.
		</p>
		<p>
			They said,
			&quot;Come, let&apos;s build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top reaches to the sky, and let&apos;s make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad on the surface of the whole earth.&quot;
		</p>
		<p>
			Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built.
		</p>
		<p>
			Yahweh said,
			&quot;Behold, they are one people, and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do.
			Now nothing will be withheld from them, which they intend to do.
		</p>
		<p>
			Come, let&apos;s go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another&apos;s speech.&quot;
		</p>
		<p>
			So Yahweh scattered them abroad from there on the surface of all the earth.
			They stopped building the city.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Um.
	Okay.
	So the people start building this tower.
	They want to make a name for themselves, and figure what better way than to build a really tall tower.
	I mean, what an impressive feat, right?
	They&apos;re minding their own business though, not hurting anyone.
	But Yahweh&apos;s not having any of that.
	People working together to accomplish impressive feats?
	Nuh-uh.
	Yahweh&apos;s not cool with that kind of behaviour.
	So he messes them up by inventing new languages and changing the people&apos;s brains so each person speaks a different language and they can&apos;t understand each other well enough to work together any more.
	Then for good measure, he scatters them across the earth so they can&apos;t build their city and it&apos;s impressive tower.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 11:9</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Therefore its name was called Babel, because there Yahweh confused the language of all the earth.
			From there, Yahweh scattered them abroad on the surface of all the earth.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Oh, and did I mention that this was the story of the Tower of Babel?
	Because it is.
	I was always told that the people of Babel were trying to build a tower tall enough to break into heaven.
	They wanted to get into heaven without needing Yahweh&apos;s permission and without dying first.
	But no.
	That&apos;s not even what&apos;s going on in this story.
	The people just wanted to build an impressive tower.
	They probably didn&apos;t even think heaven was up there.
	I mean, where <strong>*is*</strong> heaven, anyway?
	You&apos;ve got to remember that up above the sky is just a vast body of water, according to this religion.
	The people aren&apos;t going to want to actually get above the sky; they drown.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 12:11 - 12:19</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			When he had come near to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife,
			&quot;See now, I know that you are a beautiful woman to look at.
		</p>
		<p>
			It will happen that when the Egyptians see you, they will say,
			&apos;This is his wife.&apos;
			They will kill me, but they will save you alive.
		</p>
		<p>
			Please say that you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that my soul may live because of you.&quot;
		</p>
		<p>
			When Abram had come into Egypt, Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.
		</p>
		<p>
			The princes of Pharaoh saw her, and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh&apos;s house.
		</p>
		<p>
			He dealt well with Abram for her sake.
			He had sheep, cattle, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.
		</p>
		<p>
			Yahweh afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram&apos;s wife.
		</p>
		<p>
			Pharaoh called Abram and said,
			&quot;What is this that you have done to me?
			Why didn&apos;t you tell me that she was your wife?
		</p>
		<p>
			Why did you say,
			&apos;She is my sister,&apos; so that I took her to be my wife?
			Now therefore, see your wife, take her, and go your way.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	This part&apos;s a little confusing to me.
	In particular, the wording on 12:16 is odd.
	Did Abram just sell his wife to the pharaoh?
	Because that&apos;s what it looks like just happened.
	Then Yahweh sends plagues to the pharaoh for taking Sarai as a wife, even though he had no idea that she was already married.
	Why did he not instead send plagues to Abram for selling his wife?
	Or to Sarai for marrying the pharaoh even though she was already married?
	None of this makes any sense.
</p>
<p>
	Also of note in 12:16, why are the male servants and male donkeys listed as separate items than the female servants and female donkeys?
	Why does this passage not just say servants and donkeys, not specifying their sex?
	The sheep, cattle, and camels aren&apos;t separated by sex, and in fact, we&apos;re not even told that any of them are of a particular sex.
	This passage is just really strange.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 16:3</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Sarai, Abram&apos;s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband to be his wife.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	In the last chapter, we saw that Yahweh frowns on men becoming second husbands to a woman, and will punish them even if they don&apos;t know the woman to already be married.
	However here, a man takes a second wife.
	There&apos;s no passage that directly says Yahweh is okay with his behaviour, but Yahweh doesn&apos;t do anything to punish this man.
	Thus, we can see that Yahweh is fine with polygamy, but he&apos;s sexist, allowing only polygyny, not polyandry.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 17:9 - 17:14</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			God said to Abraham,
			&quot;As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations.
		</p>
		<p>
			This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you.
			Every male among you shall be circumcised.
		</p>
		<p>
			You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin.
			It will be a token of the covenant between me and you.
		</p>
		<p>
			He who is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every male throughout your generations, he who is born in the house, or bought with money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring.
		</p>
		<p>
			He who is born in your house, and he who is bought with your money, must be circumcised.
			My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
		</p>
		<p>
			The uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Yahweh demands genital mutilations.
	It&apos;s worth noting that there are a lot of nerve endings in the foreskin, so once it&apos;s cut off, males aren&apos;t able to enjoy the full pleasures of sex.
	They still enjoy sex, but not as much.
	It doesn&apos;t feel as good.
	Also, the foreskin protects the glans and prevents it from rubbing inside a male&apos;s clothing.
	When the penis rubs inside the clothing constantly, it becomes desensitised, making sex even less pleasurable.
	Yahweh is demanding that male genitals get modifies in such a way that males can&apos;t feel the full pleasure of sex.
	And this is somehow okay.
</p>
<p>
	Also of note, Yahweh says it&apos;s perfectly fine to buy other humans as property.
	You just have to mutilate their genitals if they&apos;re male, just like you mutilate the genitals of your own male offspring.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 18:20 - 18:21</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Yahweh said, &quot;Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous,
		</p>
		<p>
			I will go down now, and see whether their deeds are as bad as the reports which have come to me.
			If not, I will know.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Yahweh is not an all-knowing god.
	He has to actually check things out to know what&apos;s going on for sure.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 19:5 - 19:8</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			They called to Lot, and said to him,
			“Where are the men who came in to you this night?
			Bring them out to us, that we may have sex with them.”
		</p>
		<p>
			Lot went out to them through the door, and shut the door after himself.
		</p>
		<p>
			He said,
			“Please, my brothers, don’t act so wickedly.
		</p>
		<p>
			See now, I have two virgin daughters.
			Please let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them what seems good to you.
			Only don’t do anything to these men, because they have come under the shadow of my roof.”
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	It&apos;d be wicked to rape the men, but not wicked to rape the women.
	That makes loads of sense.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 19:17, 19:26</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			It came to pass, when they had taken them out, that he said, “Escape for your life! Don’t look behind you, and don’t stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be consumed!”
		</p>
		<p>
			...
		</p>
		<p>
			But Lot’s wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	You looked?
	Didn&apos;t Yahweh expressly forbid looking?
	In a trivial way or not, you disobeyed him, so you have to die.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 19:30 - 19:36</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Lot went up out of Zoar, and lived in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to live in Zoar.
			He lived in a cave with his two daughters.
		</p>
		<p>
			The firstborn said to the younger,
			“Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in to us in the way of all the earth.
		</p>
		<p>
			Come, let’s make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve our father’s family line.”
		</p>
		<p>
			They made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father.
			He didn’t know when she lay down, nor when she arose.
		</p>
		<p>
			It came to pass on the next day, that the firstborn said to the younger,
			“Behold, I lay last night with my father.
			Let’s make him drink wine again tonight.
			You go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve our father’s family line.”
		</p>
		<p>
			They made their father drink wine that night also.
			The younger went and lay with him.
			He didn’t know when she lay down, nor when she got up.
		</p>
		<p>
			Thus both of Lot’s daughters were with child by their father.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Um.
	That&apos;s not how male anatomy works.
	Before the point at which a male would pass out drunk, they&apos;d first suffer from erectile dysfunction from the alcohol.
	If you get a male passed-put drunk, you&apos;re not going to get pregnant by them.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 20:2 - 20:3</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Abraham said about Sarah his wife,
			“She is my sister.”
			Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
		</p>
		<p>
			But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, 
			Behold, you are a dead man, because of the woman whom you have taken; for she is a man’s wife.”
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Again, Yahweh cares if a man becomes a second husband to a woman, but doesn&apos;t care if a woman becomes a second wife to a man.
	It&apos;s completely sexist.
</p>
<p>
	The wording here though, of her being taken, makes me realise what the situation is a bit better though.
	I mean, there&apos;s nothing wrong with that wording, and it&apos;s used to refer to men and women alike these days, but it makes me realise something I hadn&apos;t thought about before.
	Back them, women were treated as basically being property.
	That&apos;s what this is about.
	A man can own multiple women, but if you try to take a man&apos;s wife as your own wife, you&apos;re stealing from him.
	Wow.
	That&apos;s such a terrible way to view women.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 22:1 - 22:2, 22:11 - 22:12</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			After these things, God tested Abraham, and said to him,
			“Abraham!”
			He said,
			“Here I am.”
		</p>
		<p>
			He said,
			“Now take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go into the land of Moriah.
			Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will tell you of.”
		</p>
		<p>
			...
		</p>
		<p>
			Yahweh’s angel called to him out of the sky, and said,
			“Abraham, Abraham!”
			He said,
			“Here I am.” 
		</p>
		<p>
			He said,
			“Don’t lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him.
			For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Yahweh wasn&apos;t sure if Abraham feared him enough to give him his only son.
	Again, Yahweh isn&apos;t all-knowing, and has to actually witness things to know them.
	But also, this isn&apos;t Abraham&apos;s only son.
	He also had another son, who is Isaac&apos;s half brother.
	Isaac&apos;s mother, Sarah, doesn&apos;t have another son, but his father, Abraham, who was being spoken to here, does.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 22:13</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and saw that behind him was a ram caught in the thicket by his horns.
			Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering instead of his son.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Yahweh loves him some burnt offerings.
	It lets him know you&apos;re giving stuff up for him, even though the things are burnt, and thus not any use to Yahweh.
	And also, Yahweh is all-powerful anyway, and could just make whatever he wanted.
	It&apos;s all about your loyalty to and fear of him though.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 24:50</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Then Laban and Bethuel answered,
			“The thing proceeds from Yahweh.
			We can’t speak to you bad or good.
		</p>
		<p>
			Rebekah is before you.
			Take her, and go, and let her be your master’s son’s wife, as Yahweh has spoken.”
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Arranged marriages.
	That&apos;s not going to go poorly or anything.
	You can&apos;t have people jut marry who they love or something silly like that.
	If you read the rest of the chapter, you see that the master&apos;s son (Isaac) never had a say in this, and here, you see that neither did Rebekah.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 26:9 - 26:10</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Abimelech called Isaac, and said,
			“Behold, surely she is your wife.
			Why did you say,
			‘She is my sister?’”
			Isaac said to him,
			“Because I said,
			‘Lest I die because of her.’” 
		</p>
		<p>
			Abimelech said,
			“What is this you have done to us?
			One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us!”
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Again, it&apos;s a sin for a man to lay with another man&apos;s wife, but it&apos;s not a sin for a mad to have multiple wives.
	This is completely sexist.
	And as pointed out before, this sexism is driven by Yahweh.
	It&apos;s Yahweh that decided this.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 27:6 - 27:10, 27:35</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Rebekah spoke to Jacob her son, saying,
			“Behold, I heard your father speak to Esau your brother, saying,
		</p>
		<p>
			‘Bring me venison, and make me savory food, that I may eat, and bless you before Yahweh before my death.’
		</p>
		<p>
			Now therefore, my son, obey my voice according to that which I command you.
		</p>
		<p>
			Go now to the flock and get me two good young goats from there.
			I will make them savory food for your father, such as he loves.
		</p>
		<p>
			You shall bring it to your father, that he may eat, so that he may bless you before his death.”
		</p>
		<p>
			...
		</p>
		<p>
			He said,
			“Your brother came with deceit, and has taken away your blessing.”
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	By tricking the father, who is nearly blind, the younger brother was able to get the dying father to bless him instead of blessing his older brother as the father had intended to do.
	And this misplaced blessing was valid.
	Like, apparently, Isaac isn&apos;t asking Yahweh to bless his child, in which case Yahweh understands the intent.
	Instead, Isaac is actually performing the blessing himself, like casting some sort of spell, and is thus subject to human fallibility.
	And he can&apos;t transfer the blessing to its intended recipient, either.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 29:15, 29:18</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Laban said to Jacob,
			“Because you are my relative, should you therefore serve me for nothing?
			Tell me, what will your wages be?”
		</p>
		<p>
			Jacob loved Rachel.
			He said,
			“I will serve you seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter.”
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Yup, it looks like my previous assessment was right.
	The bible depicts women as property, and they can even be used as payment for labour.
	It&apos;s a symptom of the age this book was written in.
	However, if there was a god all this time, would that god&apos;s rules change over time?
	Women are not property now, and they wouldn&apos;t have been property in the past if a just god were ruling over us.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 29:23, 29:25</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			In the evening, he took Leah his daughter, and brought her to Jacob.
			He went in to her.
		</p>
		<p>
			...
		</p>
		<p>
			In the morning, behold, it was Leah!
			He said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me?
			Didn’t I serve with you for Rachel?
			Why then have you deceived me?”
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	How did this go unnoticed?
	I mean yeah, it was dark, but you&apos;ve spent seven years in the vicinity of both daughters.
	Are you not able to tell their voices apart by now?
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 30:3 - 30:5</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			She said,
			“Behold, my maid Bilhah.
			Go in to her, that she may bear on my knees, and I also may obtain children by her.”
		</p>
		<p>
			She gave him Bilhah her servant as wife, and Jacob went in to her.
		</p>
		<p>
			Bilhah conceived, and bore Jacob a son.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	This is Jacob&apos;s third wife.
	Again, multiple husbands angers Yahweh, but not multiple wives.
	Also, it looks like maybe Bilhah didn&apos;t have a choice in this marriage.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 30:9</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			When Leah saw that she had finished bearing, she took Zilpah, her servant, and gave her to Jacob as a wife.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	This is Jacob&apos;s fourth wife.
	Also, again, it seems like Zilpah didn&apos;t have a say in the matter.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 30:31 - 30:32, 30:37 - 30:39</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Laban said,
			“What shall I give you?”
			Jacob said,
			“You shall not give me anything.
			If you will do this thing for me, I will again feed your flock and keep it.
		</p>
		<p>
			I will pass through all your flock today, removing from there every speckled and spotted one, and every black one among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats.
			This will be my hire.&quot;
		</p>
		<p>
			...
		</p>
		<p>
			Jacob took to himself rods of fresh poplar, almond, and plane tree, peeled white streaks in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.
		</p>
		<p>
			He set the rods which he had peeled opposite the flocks in the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink.
			They conceived when they came to drink.
		</p>
		<p>
			The flocks conceived before the rods, and the flocks produced streaked, speckled, and spotted.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Fleece colour and pattern in goats isn&apos;t determined by genetics.
	Rather, it&apos;s determined by what the parent animals were looking at when they had sex and conceived the children.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 30:41 - 30:42</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Whenever the stronger of the flock conceived, Jacob laid the rods in front of the eyes of the flock in the watering troughs, that they might conceive among the rods;
		</p>
		<p>
			but when the flock were feeble, he didn’t put them in. So the feebler were Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	As quoted above, Laban gets the single-coloured goats, while Jacob gets the patterned goats.
	However, while fur pattern isn&apos;t determined by genetics and is thus not inherited, strength of the animal <strong>*is*</strong>
	Jacob also gets the black sheep, though how he&apos;s obtaining black sheep from white sheep is unclear.
	In fact, I&apos;m not even sure he&apos;s getting any sheep, given the wording of the passages.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 31:14 - 31:15</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Rachel and Leah answered him,
			“Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father’s house?
		</p>
		<p>
			Aren’t we considered as foreigners by him?
			For he has sold us, and has also used up our money.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Yup.
	Your father sold you as property.
	Great guy, huh?
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 31:50</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			&quot;If you afflict my daughters, or if you take wives in addition to my daughters, no man is with us; behold, God is witness between me and you.”
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	I don&apos;t understand what is to happen if he takes other wives, but before this agreement is made, he already took two wives in addition to the daughters.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 32:22</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			He rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of the Jabbok.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	What happened to his other two wives?
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 32:32</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Therefore the children of Israel don’t eat the sinew of the hip, which is on the hollow of the thigh, to this day, because he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew of the hip.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	He was touched there on his body, so his descendent don&apos;t eat the meat from that location on the bodies of their food?
	I don&apos;t understand the logic there.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 34:12 - 34:17</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			&quot;Ask me a great amount for a dowry, and I will give whatever you ask of me, but give me the young lady as a wife.”
		</p>
		<p>
			The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father with deceit when they spoke, because he had defiled Dinah their sister,
		</p>
		<p>
			and said to them,
			“We can’t do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised; for that is a reproach to us.
		</p>
		<p>
			Only on this condition will we consent to you.
			If you will be as we are, that every male of you be circumcised,
		</p>
		<p>
			then will we give our daughters to you; and we will take your daughters to us, and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people.
		</p>
		<p>
			But if you will not listen to us and be circumcised, then we will take our sister, and we will be gone.”
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	You want our sister as your wife?
	Okay, but the males of your entire tribe have to have their genitals mutilated, even though you alone are getting anything out of this deal.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 34:25</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			On the third day, when they were sore, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword, came upon the unsuspecting city, and killed all the males.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	Oh.
	Never mind that last comment.
	This is the deceit they had in mind.
	No wonder they wanted the genitals of the males mutilated.
	It weakened them until they had time to heal, so they could be easily slaughtered.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis 35:11</cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			God said to him,
			“I am God Almighty.
			Be fruitful and multiply.&quot;
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	I just thought I&apos;d point out this other instance of Yahweh telling someone to be fruitful and multiply.
	Again, this isn&apos;t Adam or Eve being spoken to.
</p>
<div class="cited-quotation">
	<cite>Genesis </cite>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
	
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